Light
by EdeaOfEternia
Summary: Edea wakes up not in the inn of Caldisla, but another world entirely. Or maybe she never left this world to begin with...?


"Please, you have to understand - I'm not the Edea Lee you're thinking of!"

"Edea, please, you're hysterical -"

"I'm _not_ hysterical, you're just not listening!" The girl's voice grew shrill. "I know it's hard to believe, but I'm from another world - a very different one called Luxendarc -"

"There's no place called Luxendarc -"

"Yes there is! I swear to you on the Crystals themselves, I'm-"

The door clicked shut, muffling the desperate cries of the teenage girl whose arguments had not ceased since she'd woken up. The young man who had closed the door felt sick, hands balled into fists at his sides. Warily, he looked to his father.

"Has she been like this since she's woken up?"

"Yes." His voice was tired and heavy, weighed down by the circumstances. "They found her on the edge of the estate this morning."

"Here?" His son repeated, incredulous. "She was just - just _dumped_ on our property?"

"In the blind spot of our security cameras, yes." The man let out a shaky breath. He'd been crying, albeit quietly. Perhaps he still was. "I...I don't know what to do with her. The doctors are on their way, but she's - _obstinate._ She won't speak of anything but these delusions of hers - it's like she's not even the same person anymore, Aaron. She didn't - she looked at me and said that I wasn't her father. That she was the daughter of - of a templar, or some nonsense! I don't-" By now he'd raised his hand, ready to strike the table beside him in anger - but he leashed his frustrations at the last moment, letting his arm fall limply to his side. "I don't know how to get through to her."

Aaron's eyes fell shut, listening to the argument behind the door that had escalated to desperate shouts. He, too, was at a loss.

"She was only found this morning, Dad," he said after a long pause. "She might just need to rest - to be home, and once she's settled in again, she'll snap out of it."

His father remained turned away, his chin to his chest.

"They'll get away at this rate," His voice was a low, dangerous growl. "Whoever did this to her will get away and we'll never find them -!"

"I want to find out who took her too, but we can't-" He broke off suddenly, hearing a crash come from beyond the door, followed by a sharp shriek. Alarmed, he burst into the next room over, "Edea?!"

The woman who had been looking after Edea had retreated to a safe corner, looking both upset and offended. He didn't pay her any mind, though. Instead he stared at little sister, blonde hair in disarray and wild-eyed with tears streaked down her cheeks, as she stod beside an over-turned nightstand. In her hands she held a lamp, brandishing it like a weapon.

"I am _not_ you Edea," Edea growled at him, although the longer her eyes seemed to focus on him, the more confused she looked. "You're - wait, no. You're- who are you?"

Damn it. And here he'd hoped she would at least recognize _him_ -

"Y-You really don't recognize me? Your own brother?" He held up his hands in a calming gesture, slowly taking a step closer.

Her eyes narrowed. "You're not Alternis."

Alter...what? He frowned, shaking his head, "No, Edea. It's Aaron."

She shook her head immediately, "No! My brother is Alternis - the Dark Knight, Alternis Dim!"

"The...Dark Knight?" Something sparked in him - a thought. A memory. Perhaps she wasn't so far gone, "No, Edea - you're not remembering right! But you're close!"

"Not...what?" The lamp lowered hesitantly. "What are you talking about?"

"The Dark Knight - the Batman movie, remember?" He inched closer, holding her gaze. "We watched it the night before - "

"What's a movie?" She took a step back, holding the lamp in front of her again. "I don't know that word, nor do I know about batmen or -"

"Yes you do," Aaron insisted. "Guy dressed in all black, no parents, really broody and mad at the world? Come on! We saw it in theatres, Edea! You and me - "

"Y-You-?" Edea shook her head, "No! No, that's not right! I don't know what you're talking about ! I mean - it - it sounds familiar, but that's just consequence! I'm not _from_ here! I'm from Luxendarc - from Eternia! My friends and I were traveling the world to restore the Crystals, but every time we flew into the Holy Pillar, we ended up in another world-"

"Edea, that's enough!" Their father came in now, and Aaron felt his heart sink. He'd been making so much progress, but when in distress their father simply couldn't handle - "You are not from another world! Do you understand me?! You are my daughter and you were taken from us - kidnapped! You've been missing for six months and I don't know what they said or did to you to brainwash you like this, but -"

"I've not been brainwashed! You're not listening!" Edea screamed now, waving the lamp in his direction. "And you are _not_ my Father! My father is the Grand Marshal of the Duchy-!"

"Edea!" Aaron raised his voice now, cutting off their father before all sense was lost. "You said something about Crystals, right? And - you mentioned templars and other fantasy things?"

His father gave him a sharp look, demanding where this train of thought was going, but Edea turned to him and nodded despite her disgruntled expression.

"They're not fantasy, but - yes," She prayed he would listen to reason. "My three friends and I are on a quest to restore the Crystals of our world - but when we flew our airship into the Holy Pillar -"

"I think I know what you're talking about." Damn it. Goddamnit, what had they done to her?

Edea, however, lit up. "Y-You do?"

"Yes - just - " Aaron turned away, addressing their father. "Just give me some time. I need to...find something. Don't kill each other in the process-_please._"

Edea was curled up on the bed in the room they'd left her in, heart pounding in her breast as she waited for Aaron's return. Her so-called 'father' had left the room already, as did the caretaker servant lady she had been babysat by since her awakening.

_I shouldn't be wasting time,_ she put her face into her hands, taking a shaky breath. _I need to find Tiz and Agnes and Ringabel - but I don't even know where to start! If the other me is gone..._

The door opened again, and Aaron returned with a grim expression. Edea looked up when a small, smooth box was tossed into her lap.

"What is - "

"Read it." Aaron sat down beside her heavily, watching her face.

Edea smoothed her fingers over the small box. It read, _Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light._ And upon this box was an image - four young teenagers, sat upon the back of a dragon.

She looked up at him, confused. "What is this?"

"A video game," he explained quietly. "You were obsessed with it up until the day you were kidnapped. Four heroes on a quest to save a fantasy world - swords and sorcery and everything else you might have dreamed up."

Edea threw the box on the floor, scrambling to her feet with her hands clenched at her sides. "I told you, I didn't dream it up! I'm really -"

"Edea, listen to me - please," Aaron put his hands on her shoulders, suddenly desperate. "Six months ago you were abducted right outside your school - and I don't know what they did to you, how badly they drugged or tortured you, I don't know - but whatever they did, you had to create _something_ to cope. And that's what all this is - this talk of Crystals and templars, it's all just something you made up! But you're home now - you're safe, Edea, I swear to you - I will never let anyone take you away from us again." He pulled her into his arms, holding her perhaps too right as he choked a sob into her shoulder. "I'm sorry - Edea, I was supposed to pick you up that day and I didn't - they grabbed you when you walked home and it's all my fault, E-Edea, I'm so sorry -"

Edea listened to him go on, absolutely horrified. She didn't know what to think anymore - he wasn't lying. He couldn't have been lying, not the way he was sobbing like this - but she wasn't _his_ Edea! She wasn't from this world!

And yet...

Why was this world so different from the others? Where was Agnes and Tiz and Ringabel? Every other loop restarted with them waking together in the inn in Caldisla, but this time...she was alone? Why? How? Where were the rest of them?

The caretaker had shown her strange, unbelievably lifelike paintings in small glass frames - images of Edea as a child, smiling and clinging to her parents with this boy - Aaron - in the background. She had insisted that _this_ was her world, that she had never left it - not in the way she thought - and yet it felt so _wrong._ Something was terribly, heart-wrenchingly _wrong_.

As Aaron continued to weep and mutter his apologies, Edea's eyes fell to the box on the floor. It couldn't be true. No, it couldn't - she had memories - memories of growing up in Eternia, of training with Master Kamiizumi, of fighting countless battles alongside her friends - of turning traitor, of murdering her best friend, being unable to protect so many - !

"I..." Edea shoved him away from her, arms coming to curl around herself as she staggered back and away from him. "I don't...!"

Was it all a lie? Everything she'd ever known - everything she thought, everyone she fought for - an illusion? Something to keep her from whatever horrors had befallen her at the hands of her captors?

She squeezed her eyes shut, taking another step back from Aaron as she desperately tried to remember - to see through the fog that had filled her head -

_Hands...There were hands on her. Her body felt far away and yet she knew what was happening -_

But that had been DeRosa in Florem! Hadn't it? That horrible experience when she was _Charmed _by that perfume -

"No - No, it doesn't - it can't - everyone that I -" Edea was crying. Since when had she been crying?

"Edea -" Aaron reached for her, desperate, "Edea, it's okay - we'll find who did this to you, I -"

"NO!" She shrieked and turned on her heel, running out of the room as far as she could go - her body ached, but why? Why did she hurt so much? Her legs, her arms, her head - everything hurt _so much-_

When she finally came to her senses, she realized she had fled from the estate, down the cobblestone driveway and into the dark of night. There was a fence - she climbed over it, breathing hard and running on adrenaline fueled by fear as the lights of the house and voices within it lit up in wake of her departure.

She couldn't see where she was going, but felt the familiar sensation of a dirt road beneath her bare feet - similar to the roads of Luxendarc. It might not have been the right way, but it felt better - it felt like home - so she ran. She ran and kept running until the soft dirt became rough and foreign, and she staggered and fell, scraping her arms and knees on the rocky surface.

Overcome with her hysteria, Edea couldn't find the strength to get to her feet again, instead laying there as she choked back a sob. She had nowhere to go - no one could tell her answers, or -

Something loud caught her attention, and with a sharp gasp, she recognized it - light. Light rushing straight for her, although it seemed to swerve unsteadily as it approached.

_The Holy Pillar-!_ Or something like it, surely! What else could it be?

"Please -" Breathless, she reached out toward it - could hear voices screaming her name - surely, they were her friends'! They screamed - was that Alternis, too? - and Edea felt tears of relief spill from the corners of her eyes.

_Soon, she would be home._


End file.
